I recently had the opportunity to go skiing for the first time in Colorado. While I've talked before about what to pack for a winter vacation, I didn't go into much detail on the skiing itself. As someone who was born and bred in Florida, it was definitely a new experience for me and my family. Our instructor told us that, while skiing is typically an easy sport to learn, it is harder to get better at.
For my parents, two days of skiing was enough, and they stopped lessons shortly afterwards. While they were still on the bunny slope for beginners, they had made some progress in learning how to stop on time when they were going down the hill. Meanwhile, the instructor agreed that my brother and I had made enough progress to try going on the green slopes.
Some of the most important things I learned on this vacation were:
-Don't crash into other people. I made this mistake twice; once with a skiier, and once with a snowboarder. While both instances were pretty much my fault, the skiier and snowboarder each ended up apologizing to me.
-If you want to slow down at any point, you should point your feet towards each other into the shape of a pizza slice. I realized that, if you do this move right, it will almost instantly bring you to a stop, unless you are on a very steep slope, in which case you should turn sideways as well as using the "pizza slice" maneuver.
-Fellow skiiers and snowboarders were all very kind and helpful. Whenever I fell, there was always someone trying to get my ski poles (usually flung away from me into the snow five feet uphill) or assist me to my feet, even on slopes where it was hard for them to stop or actually help, when they were encumbered by their own skiis
-Never try anything you're not sure you can handle. Although I was on this vacation for about four days, I never ended up going past the green slopes. I've heard too many stories about novice skiiers trying blue or black slopes (even black diamond ones) and getting into accidents, including fatal ones.
If you're planning on going skiing anytime and are as green to the sport as I was (no pun intended), hopefully the above tips were helpful for you. I definitely plan to go skiing again one day.
